


Wires

by myadamantiumheart



Series: Tales from the Federation [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alien/Human Relationships, Alternate Universe - Bounty Hunters, Alternate Universe - Space, Artificial Intelligence, Established Relationship, Minor Injuries, Multi, Naruto Sci-Fi Week 2020, Robot Sex, Side Relationship- Minato/Kushina, Space Ninjas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:21:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27941444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myadamantiumheart/pseuds/myadamantiumheart
Summary: Team Minato finally tracks down a new body for Rin.Or- Rin got turned into an A.I., Kakashi is a little too reckless, Obito loves to play with circuits, Minato is just trying his best, and Kushina is a fiery alien happily along for the ride.For Naruto Sci-Fi Week 2020, prompts "Bounty Hunters/Space Pirates" and "Artificial Intelligence".
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Nohara Rin/Uchiha Obito
Series: Tales from the Federation [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2061570
Comments: 7
Kudos: 24
Collections: Naruto Sci-fi Week!





	1. Careful

**Author's Note:**

> So I really wanted to at least get this first chapter out- I've got a lot of school stuff to do this week but I'm going to try and finish this one up soon! Robot sex incoming in the next chapter.

“No, no, no no no no,” Obito mutters, grease-stained fingers scrabbling at the buttons and trying desperately to reconnect the frayed wires underneath the dash. “Oh, fuck, come on, you have literally one job-”

“Shall I call Kakashi for you?” Rin’s voice sounds from the speaker, her slightly-tinny tone echoing in tune with Obito’s heavy breathing. “He’s back from the surface, with Minato.” 

“You know,” Obito says, as he manages to finally twist the board back together and get the warning lights to stop flashing. “You’ve gotten a hell of a lot sassier than any A.I. has a right to be, lately.” 

“It’s because I’m not  _ artificial _ ,” Rin says dryly. “I’m my own literal consciousness, uploaded into your stupid wires. So I can sass you all I want, Uchiha.” 

“I can technically turn you off,” he snips, turning his nose up even as his cheeks get hot, like they always do when he remembers that she can see every dumb move he makes on the ship’s cameras. 

“You won’t,” she says with great surety, before he hears the tell-tale click of her turning the speakers off and ‘leaving’ him alone. And she’s right. He won’t. It had been quite the effort to get her functional in the first place over these last few years, trying to finish his prototypes. He and Minato had both heard the old Uchiha tales of a chip circuit that one could literally imprint a human consciousness onto. Finding the one that worked correctly, as Rin’s physical body deteriorated before their eyes, was possibly the most stressful experience of their combined lives. But now that they’ve done it, and she’s happier- freer, really, without the pain of her illness or the cursed seal on her belly- there’s no chance that Obito will ever let her go. No more likely than that are the slim odds he’d ever let their other partner go either. 

He finds said partner lounging in the med bay (again) being fussed over by Kushina (again) and reading his trashy Venusian romance novels while the surg-droid stitches his leg up (again.) 

“What the fuck did he do now?” Obito asks, sliding through the glass doors and keeping his level distance in order to avoid any possible backlash from their Captain’s (literally) hotheaded wife. Her hair is smoking with wisps of fire, eyes flashing and teeth sharp as she waves her hands back and forth and expounds on exactly how idiotic Kakashi had been on his and Minato’s trip planet-side. She’s still every inch the beautiful alien Minato had found abandoned on an Uzumaki warship when they were just a gangly little gaggle of misfits floating around on Jiraiya’s junker, but she’s only gotten more dangerous with each passing year and Obito knows better than to approach. 

“-and he thought it would be a good idea to pull out one of his stupid fucking holographic dogs, knowing full well that isn’t anywhere close to the definition of  _ lying low _ -” 

“Did you seriously pull out the ninken on the surface of an entirely new planet?” he asks Kakashi, who just shrugs and rolls his eyes lazily towards his thigh, almost totally stitched up at this point. “How mad is Minato?” 

“Super mad,” Rin’s voice chimes in from the overhead speaker. “He’s drinking that terrible Europan fire whiskey again.” 

“Fuck,” Obito swears. “You-” he points to Kakashi, who looks rather more cowed now that he knows he’s driven their generally mild-mannered captain to drink. “Stay here until it’s all the way healed, you hear me? None of that half-done I’ll-heal-in-my-quarters bullshit you usually pull, or I’m not fucking you for an entire solar month. I’m going to go make sure Minato isn’t sloppy crying over old Earth sitcoms again.” Kakashi’s cybernetic eye widens noticeably as Obito leaves, Kushina’s sparking fingers closing over his shoulder and pushing him back down onto the bed, but Obito has no pity for him right now. They’re on an important mission, this time. When it’s your average Kepler run, passing moon-dust drugs between planets in the system in time for mid-summer festivals or escorting a Federation vessel on a diplomatic mission, it doesn’t really matter how much Kakashi and Obito goof off. All Obito has to do is keep The Flying Thunder God running, really, and all Kakashi has to do is make sure that Minato doesn’t get shot when they make infrequent contact with actual lifeforms. But this is something that matters more to Minato than anything else, because they’re finally close to tracking down an actual cyborg body for Rin this time. 

Minato has always felt responsible for the sickness and the cursed seal that eventually led to her physical death. His guilt over the way Rin has spent her early twenties in the wires of his ship eats at him periodically, evident in the way he sometimes withdraws to stare at the early pictures of them, when he and Jiraiya had first picked them up off the floating death-traps of Konoha’s outer rim. Much in the way that he feels responsible for Kakashi’s cybernetic eye, or the fact that Obito’s arm had to be reconstructed after a dodgy mission through the deep asteroid fields. Of course, they forgive him for it. Resentment is a poison on ships like theirs, one that will slowly kill the whole crew off if you don’t take care of it quickly and publicly. But guilt eats at you, as Obito well knows, regardless of the forgiveness they’ve tried to give Minato. 

He finds their captain sitting in their tiny mess hall, still in his mission clothes and staring at a holo-map of the planet below them with unseeing eyes. There’s a half full bottle of Europan firewhiskey next to him on the table. From the pink in Minato’s cheeks and the slightly glazed look he gives Obito as the doors slide open and shut to let the other man in, the whiskey has already kicked in. Obito doesn’t say anything, at first, sidling up to the table slow enough that Minato can send him away if he really wants to. He slides into the booth after a long moment of waiting for the older man to speak, pushing in far enough that their thighs press together. It’s quite rare that Minato will indulge like this, loathe to allow his weaknesses to show even in front of their crew. Between that, and the gravity of their current mission, the anticipatory upset in Obito’s chest is altogether unsettling and new. 

“You know,” Obito murmurs, nudging his shoulder against Minato’s. “It’s not too late to just jettison him off onto 51 Pegasi-b and leave him at the mercy of the old outer Venusian cult there.” Minato laughs rather wetly, before slumping down a little, leaning his head against Obito’s still fully human shoulder and closing his vanadyl-blue eyes. 

“You would be sad, don’t lie,” Minato says after a moment, his words slightly stretched out and warm from the alcohol. 

“For a little while, sure,” Obito shrugs, careful not to dislodge Minato from his resting place. “But I’ve got Rin and all her beautiful circuits, you know, Kakashi can’t really compare. He doesn’t even come with a mute button for when he’s nagging me.” Somehow, Obito knows that Rin is listening to their conversation, and she’s probably bursting with the desire to chime in and scold him for insinuating that she ever nags them. But she’s perfect, as always, and she lets them be. 

“He’s just…” Minato sighs, gloved fingers creeping over Obito’s thigh and gripping him tightly, like he’s the only thing anchoring them here in the vacuum of space. “I can’t lose more of you. You know that.” 

“He’s reckless, and stupid, and he doesn’t value his own life nearly enough,” Obito says quietly, sliding his own fingers between Minato’s and holding him right back. It’s still a shock, some days, to realize that he’s grown taller and bigger and broader than their mentor. Somehow, seeing his own fingers dwarf Minato’s just doesn’t seem right. He can remember when they were little, silly eight year olds whispering after lights-out on the ship and getting caught out of their bunks by a tired, ever-smiling barely eighteen year old Minato. Minato could scoop all three of them up with ease to deposit them back in their requisite bunks, back then. And now it’s his turn to scoop Minato up, when the older man blinks sleepily at him and a few spare tears leak from his fond, sad eyes. “Come on, let’s get you back to the bunk before Kushina finishes reaming Kakashi out in the med-bay. He’s going to be fine, it was just a little scratch anyway, compared to some of the shit he gets up to. He’ll come see you when you’ve both slept it off and we’ll figure out how to fix this.” 

“I can’t lose more of you,” Minato repeats numbly against his collarbone, mumbling and squeezing his hand with those ever-competent, elegant fingers, and Obito just sighs. He leaves their captain in his quarters, transferring him over to Kushina’s waiting arms. Kakashi will be back in the crew quarters, probably doped up on one of the opioid shots from the med bay, but Obito’s not quite ready to see him yet. The little blinking lights that mean Rin’s watching him follow him all the way down the hallway as he laps the ship once, twice, three times, trying to let the simmering anger in his gut cool down. When he finally comes back, the quarters are dark, and Kakashi’s lying face down on their modified, king sized bunk. He’s not really mad at Kakashi, anymore. It’s hard to be upset with him over his instinct to sacrifice himself for the mission (any mission) or the way that he acts to get things done as quickly as possible no matter the consequences. They’re often side effects of carrying software like the Sharingan in a human body, after all, and Kakashi was already ruthless to begin, a weapon molded from the moment of his unfortunate birth on the White Fang’s plague-stricken dreadnought. 

“M’sorry,” Kakashi mumbles into the pillows, when Obito shucks his working clothes into the laundry chute and slips on his sleeping pants, coming to sit beside him on the bed. “Didn’t think it would muck everything up so badly.” That’s how Obito knows that Kakashi’s really flying on the meds still- the apology, an oddity that he so rarely hears coming from his sarcastic, slouching partner. 

“Yeah, you don’t think, do you,” Obito murmurs, bending down to press his mouth to Kakashi’s bare shoulder. It’s comforting, feeling the warmth of his skin, being reminded that he’s here and he’s still breathing. He rests there for a long moment, feeling Kakashi’s rib cage as it slowly rises and falls. “Minato will fix it, like he always does. You know he’s too charming for anyone to resist, regardless of species.” 

“Still feel bad,” Kakashi says quietly, turning his head to look at Obito with those stunning, mismatched eyes. 

“Yeah,” Obito snorts, helping his lover turn over in the bunk and sliding further onto the bed. “That’s the guilt, dumbass.” Kakashi rolls his eyes, though they both know that Obito’s probably right, and pulls his hand up over the faint scars that crisscross his pale chest. He presses his lips, stunningly plum in the shadows of their bunk, to the tips of Obito’s callused fingers, one by one by one. Obito knows that it’s just another one of Kakashi’s things; apologizing with his body, when words fail him and he can’t quite work the uncomfortable feelings out of his gut. But the scrape of his lover’s teeth over scarred knuckles and the way Kakashi tilts his head back, taking two Obito’s fingers  _ deep _ in his mouth and sucking, is persuasive enough. 

“Hey,” he says, when Kakashi takes his fingers a little too eagerly and chokes slightly. “Not too rough, you’re still healing.” 

“My leg,” Kakashi tries to point out around Obito’s digits, but his blown-wide pupils are proof enough of his own sloppiness. 

“I swear on the stars, you stubborn fuck,” Obito growls, and then he’s taking his hand back and pinning Kakashi down, pushing his legs wide, mindful to keep clear of the stitches. “If we’re doing this, you’re going to keep still and take what I give you.” It’s easy to catch Kakashi’s wrists and draw them up, his patchwork eyes growing even darker and his cheeks flushing red as Obito presses them to the soft headboard with a commanding noise. “Rin, help me out here.” An audible, startled whine tumbles from Kakashi’s throat unhindered when the hydraulics hiss lightly and two thick strips of panelling wrap gently but firmly around his wrists. 

“That’s not fair,” Kakashi says, his hips shifting and his gaze going slightly unfocused as he tries to test his bonds and finds them completely unyielding. He can complain all he wants, but Obito knows how much he likes being held down. 

“I think it’s pretty fair,” Rin’s voice echoes slightly around the quarters, dulled down a little bit for sleeping hours. “It’s still two against one when you pull stunts like that, whether I have a body or not.” 

“You don’t mind, though, do you,” Obito rasps, as he drags his hands down Kakashi’s arms and pushes his chest down easily against the mattress. It’s a work of minor memory to scrape dull fingernails across Kakashi’s pecs, watching the skin turn pink as he draws his own name into the skin there, as he tugs at Kakashi’s nipples and pulls the sounds from his mouth like a bow drawn across a violin. “You like it when we gang up on you.” Kakashi swallows heavily, eyes soft as he looks up at Obito like the older man might have hung all the stars in the sky. 

“Kiss me?” he asks, so softly that Obito hardly hears it, and there’s nothing the Uchiha can do but obey. Such rare requests from their lover he must fulfill, so he has no trouble bending to fit their mouths together with an unhurried breath. Kakashi’s lip is bitten, swollen already from earlier when he’d probably sucked on it to stifle his sounds of pain during Kushina’s treatment. It fits perfectly, though, Obito’s tongue laving over it and tasting copper, sweetgrass balm, the coffee he undoubtedly downed while surface-side. His skin is warm and reassuring, thighs tightening around Obito’s waist as Obito leans even more weight on him, and when Obito pulls away to look at Kakashi laid out like that, Kakashi chases his mouth with a dissatisfied noise. “More,” he demands, arms shifting as he tries to tug at his immovable bonds. It’s strange to hear the sound of Rin’s tinny laughter surrounding them despite the absence of her tan skin and pretty smile, to see the way she tightens the cuffs and how Kakashi gasps at the sensation of his wrists being gently squeezed. 

“I already told you,” Obito murmurs, palm pressed flat to Kakashi’s stomach, thumb rubbing just under the waistband of his sleep pants. “You’ll keep still and get what I give you, baby.” He wants to drag it out just to be a little contrary, for the scare Kakashi had given Minato earlier, but he also wants to go slow because he so rarely gets Kakashi so pliant beneath him. His abdominal muscles tense slightly when Obito tickles just under his navel, hips squirming away, but his ability to escape is hindered by the pain medication and the hold on his arms. It’s easy to yank his pants down, mindful of his stitches but eager to see him bared on the bed in the dim purple glow of the nighttime light strips. He’s so sweet like this, pale skin and flushed cheeks, far too easy to hook fingers under his knee and push his uninjured leg up, bending him until his thigh almost touches his chest. Obito can’t help smoothing his palm up over Kakashi’s slowly hardening dick either, to watch the way his jaw drops open and his nose scrunches up in sudden pleasure. This, all of this is what he stands to lose- what  _ they _ stand to lose- when Kakashi is so fucking  _ careless _ . 

“Mmff,” Kakashi huffs before his lover can get too lost in his head, eyes trying to focus on Obito’s scarred face and leg twitching in his grasp. “Never should have told you I can bend like this.” 

“Rin would have snitched on you at some point anyway,” Obito points out, pressing his grin to Kakashi’s calf and hooking the smaller man’s leg right over his broad shoulder. Spread out here, it’s easy to keep Kakashi’s injured leg steady and safe while Obito fumbles in the wall drawer for lube. With a muffled giggle, Rin pops another drawer open above Obito’s hand, and lo and behold- their lube containers are all right there. 

“I would have,” she says, all the cameras blinking as she watches them with avid interest. It’s too easy to recall what it was like when she could be here with them, tangible and whole. She used to fit perfectly against their sides, all warm skin and silky brown hair that smelled like the old gardenias from the Konoha oxygen gardens. Obito remembers exactly how her soft thighs felt around his face, the way she pulled at his hair and wailed for them when they both took her at once, putting the sound-cancelling seals on their quarters to good use. Even the week they stole in the tropical islands of Tau Ceti, when she let them lay her out under waving purple palms and make love to her until she nearly cried, arms circled around their shoulders like an inescapable gift. “Mostly because you don’t know how to ask for things properly, Kashi, and I know you like it when Obito makes you feel small.” 

“Do not,” Kakashi tries, but his denial is nothing more than a gasped whisper because Obito’s sliding two slick fingers into his ass without any warning at all. “Fuck, shit, Obito, oh- ohh-” 

“Yeah, just like that,” Obito murmurs, teeth scraping along the obvious tendon in Kakashi’s lower thigh, fingers thrusting in slow and deep. “Let me in, pretty boy, come on, I’ll give you what you want.” Kakashi’s breathing gets steadily heavier as Obito pushes harder, his muscles relaxing until Obito manages to rub across his prostate and he jerks weakly with a shout. It’s enough to have Obito sweating, his erection straining at the fly of his sleep pants, even as Kakashi’s cock flushes pink-red-candy and drips across his twitching stomach. He wants to bend down and lick it, to suck the pretty head into his mouth and hear Kakashi whine. To feel the way his thighs tremble around Obito’s ears as he struggles not to fuck up into that perfect heat, or hear his whimper when Obito slips his tongue against the sensitive spot, just under the head, and Kakashi has to try to hold on. 

“Oh, don’t hide,” Rin’s chiding tone comes softly from the speakers right next to Kakashi’s trapped hands. “Give us your sounds, Kakashi, there’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Obito hadn’t even noticed how Kakashi had bitten down on his own lip again, jaw straining as he struggles to roll his hips up into Obito’s hand while splayed out like this. When Obito reaches up to pull Kakashi’s swollen lip from between his teeth, the other man gasps for him, leg spasming and trying to tug him closer. 

“I don’t need- I mean, I, I’m ready, you can-” Kakashi tries, but as before, neither of them listen to him. Obito just slips a third finger in, watching Kakashi’s pink, slick hole stretch around him and soaking in the little hitch in his breath, the deep shudder down his spine as Obito spreads his fingers wide. He swallows up Kakashi’s protests with another deep kiss, feeling him relax into it and let Obito in deep, deep, deeper until he’s rolling his hips weakly up into Obito’s fingers and panting against his wet mouth. 

“Let me remember you’re here with me,” Obito rasps, when Kakashi tries to beg again, and he finally settles into it as Rin moves the panels above his hands, until he has a bar to grasp as well. They’re floating in orbit above a planet that Obito’s never set foot on, in a dark well of space that he’s never been to, and their lover is nothing more than a voice in their ear- but Kakashi’s muscles are firm beneath him, and his long, satisfied groan when Obito slowly slides his fingers out to fit the head of his cock against his ass is real. It’s tangible, grounding, to thrust so deep inside him it feels like they’ll never be parted, to breathe the air from his mouth and know that his heart is still beating beneath the scar that Obito rests his forehead on. He can’t forget who loves him, here, when he grinds his hips down and hears Kakashi’s voice crack on the end of his name, on the endearment that marks him as their property, their body, their heart. When he finally bends back up again to brace himself, to fuck in harder and watch Kakashi’s face contort with pleasure, he finds his balance once again. 

“Does it feel good, Kashi?” Rin asks, naught but a whisper at lowest volume that makes Kakashi’s ears turn red as he presses his face to the pillow and moans. With his eyes closed, it’s almost like she’s still there, like her clever fingers will creep over his stomach and grasp his dick firmly to keep him from coming too soon. 

“Y-yes, yeah,” he manages, broken in half by a punishingly deep thrust, “good, good, it’s really good Obito,  _ oh- _ ” 

“Right there, huh?” And the heat ratchets up as Kakashi’s back arches weakly, fingers twisting and a high whine caught in his throat. He tugs at the cuffs with no intent to escape, just to be reminded that they  _ have _ him, fire building heavy at the base of his spine and a sweet ache spreading through his stomach. “This is what you have here, baby,” Obito murmurs, bent over him, grinding in deep so that he can rub the head of his cock right across Kakashi’s prostate and watch the way it makes him  _ wail _ , how his dick drools precome right onto his stomach and his fingers work helplessly on the metal bar. “You can’t expect us to treat you recklessly, the way you treat yourself. You gotta be  _ careful _ ,” he emphasizes, slamming his hips forward and relishing in the thick, wet noise it makes each time. “You promised to come home to us every time, Kashi, there’s no backing out now.” 

“I know, I know, I kn-know, I’m yours,” Kakashi rasps breathlessly, head tossing and stomach clenching as he tries, tries so hard to hold on but he can’t. “I promise, promise, Rin,  _ Obito- _ ” 

“Come for me, pretty boy, come on my cock, just like that,” Obito coaxes him through it, through gritted teeth and heavy breath, watching with rapt attention. Kakashi’s so beautiful, every time, the way his face just crumples as the pleasure overtakes him and he whimpers helplessly, cock twitching and come dripping down his chest. “You don’t even need us to touch your pretty cock anymore, do you?” Obito teases, as though he’s not also so close to losing it, as though he’s not biting his own cheek to hold on. Kakashi nearly bites a hole in the pillow when Obito keeps going, rubbing across sensitive nerves and sending sharp shocks through him that keep his orgasm rolling until it’s fire and ice shuddering up his spine. It’s fucking electrifying, the way his dick just keeps spurting weak jets of come, Obito’s fat erection milking it right out of him until he’s near tears. “Can I?” he asks, begs, when Kakashi’s finally arching away from his ministrations, and Kakashi just nods, head lolling on his red-flushed neck as Obito slams home one final time and comes with a broken groan. 

Rin doesn’t even make them get up out of bed, just opens the drawer next to the bunk with warm towels to clean up, softly humming as Obito drags the wet cloth along the line of Kakashi’s pink, sweating chest. It’s easier to lie there in the afterglow, now, with this obvious reminder of his lover dozing there beside him. He’s alive, in a different way from Rin, breathing softly against Obito’s scarred shoulder. When their sleep time is over, and it’s morning on the planet below, they’ll figure out what to do next. Despite the guilt that Minato feels, and the subdued upset that radiated from Kakashi earlier, Obito’s certain it’s not a loss. He’s not quite as able to be inconspicuous, but worst comes to worst he’ll go surface-side and look for their lead himself. They’ve been looking for it for too long to just give up on it now, no matter how bad Kakashi pissed off the locals with his ninken. 

The thing about androids like the one they’re looking for is that in a lot of places around the galaxy, they’re not strictly legal. At least, not the kind that you can download someone’s entire consciousness onto. For obvious reasons, the Federation’s own ethical code hasn’t allowed the research of such projects within their sponsored labs. Still, Obito knows it can be done, in part because the man who’d raised him before Jiraiya’s junker came along was an android of that nature himself. Madara had first told him about the idea of porting consciousness onto the galactic net or a chip system as though it was all an old Uchiha legend. When Obito received his sharingan eyes, however, it had become clear that Madara knew the legends firsthand: in fact, he was the reason they existed. The old android would have been horrified to learn of the way Obito had eventually used that knowledge- not to make himself stronger, invincible against the many dangers of the outer rim of the galaxy, but to strengthen his connection to someone whose lifeform body was weak to those same dangers. Still, Obito can’t shake the feeling that he would also be (at least a little bit) proud. After all, he’d always had a soft spot for the way Obito defied logic and rules, especially those laid down by Madara himself. 

Regardless of the Federation’s  _ guidelines _ , Obito knows they’re going to find one. It’s a promise he made to himself, but more than that it’s a promise he made to Rin herself, before they ported her onto the Flying Thunder God. They just have to get lucky once, with one dealer, and get the droid body back to the ship. 

Everything after that will be smooth sailing. 


	2. Fulfill

Minato hums, early morning light filtering on the dash computer as he plots out what, exactly, they’re going to do to get back surface side. Kushina’s still in bed, smug smile firmly affixed to her face as she scrolls the bounty boards on her tablet. She does have something to be smug about, and Minato feels the faintest flush bleed over his cheekbones when she looks his way and flashes her sharp teeth at him-

His body, pliant and warm from whiskey, spread out under her on the bunk, and the hot, slick flesh of her nine tentacles wrapped around his limbs, holding him down as she rode him slow enough to drive him out of his mind, to drive him to beg her please please please let me  _ touch _ -

Well. She has some things to be smug about, is all. It’s hard to focus on diagramming their surface run when she hasn’t put any clothes back on either, all fiery skin and crimson hair, her hips like magnets for his hands and her mouth ever-waiting for one of his “strange, delightful human kisses”. But he tries to get it done quickly anyway, because he knows Kakashi will be filled with guilt when he rises in an hour and the pain medications have worn off. They carry a similar guilt when it comes to their team. Minato will always hold the weight of their search for Rin’s new body like stones on his shoulders. Sometimes, at night, it holds him down in his sleep, a thousand moments he wishes he could change. He sees the Kiri ship captain putting the cursed seal of Isobu on Rin’s back, and his own hands fumbling with his blaster just a few seconds too late. He remembers the way the dark circles under her eyes spread with every passing lunar cycle, and how her fingers trembled reaching out for another cup of tea at breakfast. He knows it wouldn’t be any better if he’d taken her place, a ship without a captain floating aimlessly through the galaxy, but some mornings he wakes up wishing he had. 

That’s why he’s been searching for so long to find Tobirama the Tinker. 

When Jiraiya first brought him up, laughing tinnily over the holograph call with his arm around a red-cheeked Tsunade, Minato hadn’t believed him. The only reason Madara had still been around when he’d found him caring for Obito on that godforsaken rock was because of his android plugins. At the time, Obito had told him Madara was the only extant version of such a lifeform, and all because of old, mostly forgotten Uchiha technology.  _ Oh, Mina _ , Jiraiya had chuckled, flickering and waving on the screen.  _ You don’t think Senju's Silver Son stole Madara’s code? He could never resist an opportunity to experiment, and his greatest test subject is himself. Once Madara shared the Edo Tensei circuits with Hashirama, it was all over. He’s been holed up in his laboratory ever since he got the opportunity to try creating Edo Tensei, and if you’re lucky enough to find him he may share them with you as well _ . Especially in Rin’s case, I think. He’s always had a soft spot for those brilliant daughters of the stars, eh, Tsuna?

Once he knew Tobirama was still around, kept alive by his own technological machinations, Minato had scoured the galaxy for leads. Where was the Senju living? What prices did he charge? Would they even be able to bargain with him, in his secretive hermitage? And now, after two years of exhausting leads, running bounties, and dodging Federation vessels, they’re almost there. The planet they’d surfaced last night, Corium, had the largest black market this side of Orion’s Belt- and that meant Tobirama the Tinker could hide himself among the stalls in a workshop built deep into the bedrock of the planet, keeping himself in business paying favors to Federation exiles who ran The Core. After all, a black market requires security measures and radar cloaks beyond what a normal mechanic could hope to create, and Tobirama’s legacy alone was a shield. 

They just have to get to his front door, because he’d agreed to meet them if they could find him, and Minato is absolutely certain that this time-  _ this time _ \- he has. 

Soon.

* * *

Obito hardly sleeps all night, leg twitching in anticipation and fingers clutching at Kakashi, feeling the way Rin seems to open the comms every fifteen minutes or so to check on them. He knows she’s watching, and that she would want him to sleep, but he can’t help it- he’s too wound up. He’s going to get to  _ hold _ her again. 

Soon.

* * *

They wake up to Kushina banging on the metal door frame, doors open and corridors flooded with light. For a moment, she looks like one of those Earth angels, the ones that Obito’s seen in holo-books in the Coruscant museum. Then she grins across the room at them, and he’s reminded of how  _ sharp _ her teeth are. 

“Up, up, beautiful starshiiine,” she sings, leaning against the wall in her surface-clothes. “The dealer contacted us, and he’s willing to meet us in the Core markets.” 

“I’m not coming with you, am I?” Kakashi asks blearily, and Kushina’s smile is positively terrifying. Her hair is nothing but a halo of fire, and her eyes are perfect, ice cold tanzanite, and this is when Obito knows that Kakashi is about to taste some Kushina-flavored retribution for worrying Minato yesterday. 

“Not looking like that, you’re not,” Kushina smirks. Kakashi’s pained swallow is audible. 

So is his grimace when, thirty minutes later, Kushina’s attached a henge field to his suit and a tall, willowy woman with short silver hair is standing in front of them. 

“Is this really… is this necessary?” Kakashi asks delicately, knowing full well that he’s standing in the middle of a metaphorical minefield as Minato prepares the transport to get them to the surface. 

“You and Obito need to stand watch while Minato and I talk to the dealer,” Kushina beams, hair waving gently and eyes still rock-hard as they trail over Kakashi’s current disguise. “And, for obvious reasons, we don’t want anyone to recognize you.” To be fair, Obito doesn’t think anyone will. Kakashi’s noticeably different, enough so that looking at him like this doesn’t even register as looking at  _ Kakashi _ . He’s favoring his still healing leg, but other than that, Obito can’t recognize the soft curve of his face or the way his hair falls gently across his forehead, not to mention the two matching grey eyes. The curve of his ass is still quite compelling, though, and Kushina snorts when she catches him looking as Kakashi bends over to attach his daggers to the calf bands on his suit. It’s fairly easy to beam to the surface without much fanfare, landing in a field of swaying plum grass and jade plants just on the outskirts of the border town that leads to the Core, but it feels strange to be walking between not-Kakashi and Kushina nonetheless. She hardly  _ ever _ goes surface-side with them on missions. Just another reminder of how important their mission is, this time. 

The entrance to the market is nothing remarkable, really. The same as a hundred other black markets they’ve gone to before, on a hundred other outer rim Federation planets, where the dubious remains legal simply because there aren’t enough patrols to bother stopping it. Small clay buildings hide a line of other barely disguised hunters and runners, none of them willing to look each other in the eye. Sharingan are more rare these days, but the Byakugan keeps growing among groups like these. The muscle-bound Venusian checking weapons at the door flat out laughs when he sees Minato, and for a moment Kakashi stiffens like he’s really going to stab the guy right then and there. 

“Oh, now I know someone as pretty as you must be up to trouble if you’re here at the Core,” he practically purrs in his strange, velvety accent, leaning in to sniff at Minato’s golden hair. Minato offers him a winning smile, all straight white teeth and wholesome, pink cheeks. The Venusian checks his blaster for any of the banned modifications before handing it back, his lithe, six fingered hand lingering on Minato’s forearm. 

“Only the good kind of trouble,” Minato says earnestly, and the bouncer laughs loud enough to startle the idling droids in the back of the room.

“Well, if you and your handsome captain want some more good trouble, you can come find me after you’ve done your business,” he says, winking one of his three golden eyes at Kushina with a lewd grin. She grins right back, her eyes flaring sun-bright. (It wouldn’t be the first time she and Minato brought another alien back to the ship for a night, and Obito has to wonder if the Venusian bouncer even knows what sort of fire he’s playing with.)

The stairwells down into the actual underground market themselves are dimly lit, crowded with those loitering waiting for a sale or people eager to leave with their newly purchased goods before anyone else can accost them. In the vast cavern of the Core, everything seems possible. There are aliens from exoplanets that Obito’s never even seen before, and is unlikely to see again, and an absurd amount of smoke from portable charcoal hookah. Food vendors sell meats that Kakashi’s sharp nose can tell are almost certainly from inner-ring planets, tangy with hints of Earth-salt and Martian spices, or flatbreads cooked on an open fire. Kushina makes to wander off towards the Denisovan selling fried, crispy sea quail eggs on sticks, but Minato tugs her back with an apologetic glance. 

“We can get it on our way out,” he murmurs, just loud enough to be heard over the din of shouting merchants and buskers playing lunar sitars on the underground streets. “But we can’t miss the meeting, or Tobirama won’t be happy.” 

When they reach the meeting spot, Obito and Kakashi hang back, leaning up against the stand selling dubiously sourced meat jerky and slightly bloodied arrows while Minato and Kushina approach the right ‘address’. There’s a small, handwritten sign tacked to the wall- “Senju Laboratory.” Among the crowded streets and groups of haggling customers, the single dingy door made of anodized steel swings open, and a pale arm lined with red paint gestures them forward. Minato double checks the lopsided number above the door, looking back over his shoulder at them, hand on the blaster at his hip, before they disappear into the shadows. Kakashi’s tense, a hard line of worry up against Obito’s side, but Obito’s forcing himself to stay calm. He trusts them. More than that, he trusts that Kushina wouldn’t let Minato get hurt, and Minato won’t let Kushina fuck it up either. If there’s any chance that they’re going to be successful today, Minato and Kushina will make it happen. 

He palms the little charger in his pocket with his fully flesh hand, squeezing it tight and feeling it vibrate back. Rin is in there with them. Or, at least, a little bit of her is, connected to the ship via radio transmission. It’s been a long time since he felt this nervous, this hopeful, this conflicted. They’ve been waiting two solar years for her to be back with them in a tangible way. To be this close, to taste victory, is like the adrenaline rush of asteroid-surfing in the Flying Thunder God’s little accessory pods. They still hear her laughter every day, and she still helps them as much as she possibly can, but Obito wants to hold her in his arms again. He wants to watch her smile, not just the holo-projection of her in the command center. He wants to see her kiss Kakashi with whatever mouth she can have, and to remember what it’s like to wake with her beside them, between them, on top of them. And, though it seems trite and slightly ungrateful of the way that Kakashi gives his whole self to Obito, body and all, Obito misses making love to her too. He knows Kakashi wouldn’t agree with his guilt over that, because Kakashi certainly misses it too, but part of Obito wonders why he still dreams of Rin that way when they’re so lucky to have any part of her left at all. 

Kakashi shifts nervously beside him again, elbows knocking his, and Obito instinctively leans over to grab his waist and tug him in closer. There are people watching them (when aren’t there) but the closer they get to each other, the easier it is to pretend that they’re engrossed in one another, not looking for a hit of some Mercurial spice or trying to find an in for gambling on the Core fighting pits. When a group of Dressellians look a little too intently at them, Obito leans down to kiss across Kakashi’s pale, unnaturally curved cheek. 

“How long has it been?” 

“An hour or so,” Kakashi responds, pink lips hardly moving. “Really, you’re going with the ‘besotted lovers’ cover  _ here _ of all places?” 

“You have a better idea?” Obito murmurs, setting his teeth against the shell of Kakashi’s ear and laughing when he shivers. “Keep your Sharingan on the door and everything will be fine. It’s not like we can just go up and knock to ask what’s taking them so long, and people are starting to stare.” 

“Well, what if-” Kakashi starts, squirming slightly until his robotic eye can focus in on the door, tomoe spinning as he catalogues out the hidden energy running through the building’s security system. For such a dingy little shack, it’s got an impressive amount of work on it. 

“What if nothing,” Obito hushes him. “I want it done too, but we’ve been looking for two years. Another hour isn’t going to break it. Rin will still be waiting when we get back to her.” 

“I know  _ that _ ,” Kakashi mutters, unusually full mouth pouting as he shakes some of his wispy, sweet smelling silver hair off his borrowed forehead. “But a little healthy paranoia is actually good for you, Obito. Keeps us alive out here when you’re being overly optimistic about everything.” 

“There’s healthy paranoia, and then there’s explaining away your own impatience,” Obito says, directly into Kakashi’s ear, as he drags a hand down to grip a handful of Kakashi’s plush ass. “You can’t rationalize it to me, baby, I know what’s running through your mind. Trust Mina and Kushi to get the job done.” 

“Stars,” Kakashi mutters, fingers pinching at Obito’s waist harshly and feet shuffling until he can step at Obito’s toes in retribution. “You’re fucking insufferable, you know that? You watch one yoga series off Kushina’s pod and now you’re a goddamn guru.” 

“One of us has to be reasonable until she gets back,” Obito says, acutely aware of the fact that they’ve been echoing that phrase to each other for twenty four solar months, now, acting like Rin’s just on a long spice-dust run and she’ll be home any minute. And it’s true. Rin was most of their impulse control when she was technically alive, and now she plays the part of the conscience in their heads even more, with her direct link into their comms. After another hour or so, he gets a message on his pod. 

_ Take a walk _ , Minato texts. _ Tobirama says you’re drawing too much attention _ .

Showing Kakashi the message and then tugging him away from the door, Obito can pretend that they’re just there as tourists. He slides Kakashi’s fingers between his metal-enhanced ones, those familiar digits that not even a perfect henge-field could obscure from Obito’s reach. He knows Kakashi like he knows the central stars of the galaxies, a solid weight beside him as they wander through the stalls. The Coruscant mosaics remind Obito of the first time Minato brought them to a market, when they were barely eight years old and he’d had them for less than a solar year-

“They’re so beautiful,” Rin whispered, her hair wispy and tickling his cheek. “Look at how they  _ sparkle _ .” He rubbed the credit coins in his pocket between his sweating fingers, glancing over at Kakashi, who looked like he couldn’t care less. He wasn’t even halfway through the ice pop that Minato bought them before taking off to grab the latest bounties, eyes half-closed and completely unbothered. Obito didn’t have enough, really, to buy one of the hanging glass pieces for Rin’s bunk, but maybe if he bargained, haggled a little like old man Izuna used to… He pulled her forward with him, catching the way that her eyes linger on the Morellian lotus design hanging in the very corner of the stall. 

“How much?” he asked, and the dealer laughed, smoke pouring from his nostrils like an ancient dragon. 

“More than you have,” he huffed, not unkindly. “Twenty credits, little human.” And true, it was more than Obito had on him- four credits left, because he’d already gotten himself copper taffy to chew on earlier. Rin dug into her pockets, pulling six out, a remnant of her own snack of popped corn covered in moon sugar. 

“Are you-” Obito hesitated, shrinking down a little bit as the dealer’s eyes flashed and he leaned forward, his genial nature bleeding away at the first sign of Obito’s defiance. A pale hand shoved its way through the both of them and slapped ten credits down on the table. 

“Well?” Kakashi snapped, annoyed facade fragile like glass over his angular face as he pretended not to look their way. “The other ten, Uchiha.” 

“Thank you, Kakashi, Obito,” Rin gushed, as she shoved the other ten credits towards the dealer and he carefully unhung the lotus glass from its hook. The purple and gold of the iridescent glass gleamed in the reflected light of the firewalker next door, shining like a precious gem in Rin’s careful hands. And, though Kakashi refused to acknowledge what he’d done, even after Minato returned to take them back to the Flying Thunder God, Obito remembers waking to him staring at it in the dark of their shared bunks when the meteor showers got particularly heavy on the hull of the ship.

Now, as they wander aimlessly through the crowd, deftly dodging pickpockets and overbearing sellers alike, both of them feel that space where Rin used to be, enamored of all the art and ever-smiling as she savored the busy tableau. Obito can smell a tandoor cooking fresh meat somewhere in the near distance, and he hooks his fingers tighter between Kakashi’s to drag him that direction. They can at least eat, while they wait, even if both of them are on edge being outside of Minato’s quick-porting Hiraishin range. He shoves credits into the vendor’s hand, snagging them some rolled up flatbread with spiced, baked game inside it, covered in sauce so pungent and delicious that it’s like being catapulted through all the memories of them eating in alleyways and on park benches waiting for another mission to come through. He can tell Kakashi wants to go back, but Minato would tell them- they would know, if they should, and he’d explicitly told them to  _ leave _ . Finally, he sees a stall that will interest his partner even in his distracted state, despite those mismatched eyes wandering aimlessly, unseeing, scanning for threats but still a million miles away. 

Weapons, gleaming with various asteroid metals and rare alloys, line the tent. The dealer, a grizzled Ferengi with bulbous head spines and suspicious eyes, doesn’t seem to be calling anyone into his stall. With blades crafted so finely, sharp enough that they appear to cut the air around them just lying there, Obito supposes he doesn’t need to. The weapons speak for themselves. There are a few other customers milling about, none of them dumb enough to reach out and touch the products. Kakashi’s fingers twitch in his grip, Sharingan scanning the rows of shining tools. 

“They  _ are _ pretty,” he murmurs quietly, consideringly, and lets Obito guide him into the shimmering walls. There’s a kunai with three prongs that seems strangely fragile, and Obito can imagine Minato flinging it across a field of stars. Another, a shortsword, is strangely reminiscent of the tanto that Kakashi had as a child, given to him by his father before the Hatake ship was set adrift. At the back of the booth, a set of nine shuriken glow like iridescent amber. Kushina’s hair would light them beautifully. Beside it lies a small purple iridium dagger that Rin would have favored, when she fought. He’s so enamored with the weapons that he fails to realize Kakashi’s trying to speak with the dealer until it’s too late. 

“You insult-” the dealer hisses, as Obito turns to see his partner bristling like a startled lightning pup. 

“What did you do?” Obito says, snappish on reflex, immediately moving towards the two, and that’s the wrong move too because the Ferengi drags a blade out faster than either of them can blink. 

“I tried to ask him how much the kunai was,” Kakashi replies, both familiar-unfamiliar henged eyes glaring directly at the Ferengi, unwilling to look away from his weapon. “But maybe my Ferengi is a little rusty-”

“Disrespectful girl, calling his mother a space beast,” one of the customers behind them clicks her tongue, and Obito’s shoulders get tight as he sees the Ferengi move forward, blade flashing in the light, and then-

“Boys,” a familiar, vaguely metallic voice cuts through the smoke and anger. “I can’t leave you two alone for even a second, can I?”

* * *

The inside of the laboratory is everything that Minato could have expected, and nothing like it at all. Kushina is clearly immediately enamored, eyes roving over every buzzing gadget and the piles of wires and notes that lie over one another like lovers waiting to birth some fresh idea together. Minato recalls that Tobirama’s brother was married to an Uzumaki, and he wonders, briefly, whether that was because of the Uzumaki penchant for curiosity that so matches the Senju’s drive for innovation. Tobirama’s presence is powerful as well. Without looking too closely, one can’t even tell that he’s cybernetically enhanced. He appears every inch the legend he is, tall and commanding, with silvery white hair reminiscent of Kakashi’s in both texture and color. His eyes are piercing, quite literally zooming in on their faces when he turns again, in the main part of the lab, to look at them. Minato can hear, ever so faintly, the sound of his ticking heart, beating in his chest with artificially extended life. This man is a God of Shinobi indeed, and somehow they’ve managed to gain an audience with him. Despite his commanding presence, however, he seems rather inclined to indifference- or, more accurately, he’s waiting for them to give him something more to work off of, instead of judging them from their initial communications entirely. 

“So you need a body,” he says, finally, crossing his arms and leaning back against one of his many lab desks. “And Princess Tsunade told you where to find me, I hear.” 

“For our crewmate,” Minato says, fighting his instinct to bow. Tsunade had been clear about that; Tobirama despises the formalities that so marked the Federation’s early days, and in particular those popularized by the Uchiha. “She was cursed by a Kiri war captain, and her body died slowly after that. We were able to use old circuits and knowledge of the Uchiha codes to preserve her consciousness on our ship, but I think all of us, especially her, tire of her being trapped there.”

“By my estimation, one would be far less trapped as a ship operation system than in one of these humanoid bodies,” Tobirama remarked mildly, raising one intimidating eyebrow. 

“Maybe so,” Kushina interjects, her voice far more formal than normal. “I myself often wonder about the allure of a human body, after all. But Rin’s lovers miss her, and she misses them.”

“It’s less about being trapped in terms of travel and ability,” Minato adds, “and more about watching the rest of us live our lives without her, forever outside the relationships that made our crew in the first place.” 

“Hm.” Tobirama huffs, eyes narrowing. “Show me. What was she like?” Minato fumbles slightly with his tablet, holding it forward with both hands and waiting for Tobirama to take it. On the screen, they have pictures- Rin and Kakashi at the Cefarian beaches, Obito laughing with his one eye gleaming brilliant red and her arms around his shoulders, the five of them crammed together on a floating lily leaf during the festival of candles on Venus. There are more, picture after picture, the things they’ve been using over the past two years to remember her as more than the voice echoing in their heads as they sleep. If Minato’s honest, he’s been looking at those pictures for more than two years. As she wasted away in front of him, those photos were his penance, a reminder of the brilliance that his hesitance and incompetence had ruined. Comparing her fragile body to the laughter he’d recorded, her glittering eyes to the dull ones smiling at them from the med-bay bed. Her voice illuminates those pictures for him every day, and with help, they might… well. He can’t get his hopes up too high. “She’ll take to the body I have nicely, I think,” Tobirama decides after long moments of looking through the photographs, for the first time taking his eyes off of them. “If she wants it.”

“You mean it?” Kushina nearly explodes next to him, and Minato thinks he sees Tobirama  _ laugh _ a little at her outburst, albeit silently, the barest shake of his shoulders and a miniscule curve of his smile. 

“It will cost you, of course, but I can do it. Kagami,” Tobirama gestures absentmindedly towards a slightly worse-for-wear android sitting at a desk in the corner of the room, seemingly paging through a book with an interested expression. “Bring me the files, please. Namikaze has a few models for us to look through.” Minato barely manages to keep his expression neutral as the android looks up from under his vaguely metallic mop of curly, manufactured hair, and his eyes flash Sharingan-bright. 

“Of course, Tobirama-san,” the android demurs, and there’s no doubt about it- this is Uchiha Kagami, one of the founding members of the Konoha alliance, when the Senju and Uchiha managed to finally sign their treaties at the beginning of the Federation. He moves so fluidly that without the metallic tint to his soft, amalgamated skin, Minato might think he was truly alive in the same way that he and Kushina are. It feels like adrenaline injected into his veins, to realize that they’re in the presence of legends- literal living legends that had catalyzed the changes leading to the galaxies around them even now. And those living legends are going to help him fix his mistakes and finally, finally make it up to his crew. 

* * *

“Rin,” Obito says, a little stupidly, eyes darting between the Ferengi and the android hand holding his blade back from Kakashi’s throat. “Rin, you-”

“Rin,” Kakashi echoes, Sharingan whirring in his skull. “They did it, they really did it, it’s you-”

“You know these idiots?” the Ferengi rasps, looking her up and down with poorly disguised interest. Obito doesn’t really blame him. She looks radiant, nothing like the rest of the Core or its customers. Her skin is gleaming, human-tan with a pearlescent sheen suggesting a built-in henge, and her hair is shinier than Obito can remember it being. She looks- she looks healthy, again, and her eyes are laughing at them, and her lips are perfectly pink, and she’s  _ here _ . 

“Tragically,” Rin answers, smiling at the vendor with all the charm that they recall her having during her first life, her fingers tightening minutely around his wrist. Minato and Kushina appear behind her, but Obito and Kakashi hardly notice. “But it’s okay, I’ll get them out of your….” she looks at his glistening, bald head, and, clearly thinking better of her original word choice, smiles again. “Out of your stall.” 

“Home,” Obito says, rather weakly, fingers reaching out for her because it’s been months and months and he can see the way her chest is rising and falling, like real lungs live inside those beautiful panels, he can see how perfectly she fits in the suit Minato brought with them. All at once, it hits him, like a meteor falling planet-side and exploding into a thousand fractal shards. Somehow, despite the longing, the missing, the searching, he hadn’t quite rationalized that if things worked out, this would be the moment. This would be the mission on which he finally got to see her again. And yet, as a comet’s orbit brings it back to grace a planet’s skies, there she is once more. After so much wanting, it feels surreal, impossible that the thing they’ve desperately yearned for is right there in front of him, smiling with perfect teeth at the bewildered arms dealer in the middle of this dingy, disgusting black market street. 

“Home,” Minato says decisively, without waiting for Obito’s brain to restart, sweeping in and extracting both him and Kakashi with those familiar, firm hands around their elbows. Obito can recall offhand quite a few moments in which those hands had dragged them out of other trouble, when they were smaller (when they weren’t about a head over Minato, at least) but at the end of the walk there’s Rin and Kushina, and she’s-

She’s home, too. 

“You’re nightmares,” Kushina says, as they wait for Minato to beam them back up, finally outside the Core. “Nightmares, I can’t believe it, we left you alone for a few hours and you almost got stabbed  _ again- _ ”

“Your hair,” Kakashi says, almost trembling as he runs his fingers across Rin’s new scalp, paying less than zero attention to Kushina’s lecturing. He’d dropped the henge as soon as they got out of the Core, and it feels almost too intimate to watch his lower lip tremble slightly with emotion. “It’s perfect, he got it-”

“Rin,” Obito repeats, over and over again, hands sliding down her body, words jumbling together just like his feet had when Minato had dragged them from The Core. 

They become a beam of light to be reassembled aboard the Flying Thunder God still connected, as unable to part from Rin’s new body as they had been with her old. 

* * *

The five of them sleep in a pile, that night, all of them crammed in the Captain’s quarters, and it’s only the next day when Minato and Kushina leave them alone to visit Tobirama again (for what, they won’t say, but Minato’s blushing cheeks make Obito  _ wonder- _ ) that they finally get time alone with her. It’s immediate, his need to fiddle with her wires, to learn every new inch of her body. Kakashi feels it too, although he’s content to hold her hand or sit beside her and watch as Obito checks every circuit, and every panel. He has to know her once more, the way they used to know her, to convince himself that she’s real again. And, if he’s honest, the desire to know her intimately has been rising ever since he saw her stop that blade in its tracks in the market yesterday. Well, he never had a very developed sense of self preservation anyway. 

It takes hours to go through the wires in her chest, down her arms, watching her fingers twitch, hearing her exclaim how delightful it is to feel the pressure of his hands on her once more. At some point, some of Kakashi’s reverence wears off, and he reverts to his old, sarcastic self, which ends with Rin laughing hard enough to shake her own circuits. And it’s normal, familiar, perfect, holy in some indefinable way. Finally, he gets to her stomach, and he’s overcome by the emotion of it- the feeling that once upon a time, the two of them would tickle her here and drink her giggles in like golden, bubbling wine. Now, he sorts through every soldering point and logic board embedded there behind the silicone pads that make her still so  _ soft _ , so real. She’s more tangible than she’s ever been because in his memories, Rin’s long gone, but here she rests underneath his hands and smiles at him with perfect, shining teeth.

“Ah,” she says shakily, giddily, metal-and-silicone fingers flexing as Obito’s hand gently tugs at the wires in her stomach when he finally finds her pleasure core, panel rattling softly. “That’s- that’s so strange. I don’t feel… I feel so small, compared to being in the ship.” 

“Good strange or bad strange?” Kakashi asks her, eyes watching with avid interest as he leans over Obito’s shoulder and tracks the way he’s reconnecting everything below Rin’s waist so that she can try walking again. Rin shivers, metal tinkling and big brown eyes blinking slowly as her artificial lungs breathe in, out, in, out. 

“G-good, I think.” Obito can’t help laughing a little, hooking his finger around one of the wires, coated in pink plastic, and pulling it forward slowly. “Oh, oh, Obito,  _ what- _ ”

“Some of these connect to some  _ interesting _ things,” he grins, plucking at it and watching Rin twitch, her new cybernetic hands coming to grasp his shoulders tightly as her circuits spin for an answer. “See, you have the grip down just fine.” He shrugs, letting her feel the way that she’s grabbing at his shirt, hands tangling in his comfortable ship-suit. “Not too strong, not too weak.” 

“What, like the-”

“If you call it my bespoke android pussy ever again I’m really going to hurt you,” Rin snaps breathily, knees knocking against Obito’s sides where he kneels in front of her. 

“So that  _ is _ where it connects,” Kakashi says smugly, teeth flashing bright in the diffuse blue light. Obito elbows him with his free arm, careful as he checks the final soldering and quietly asks Rin to try moving each of her fingers in turn. 

“I didn’t think you... “ she trails off, tapping smooth metal against Obito’s arm. “In the lab, Tobirama said that everything. Works. Just like the real thing, he told Minato. But I, well. If you didn’t want to, anymore, once you see… It’s not the same,” she hedges. “Even if it  _ works _ the same, according to him.” Kakashi’s careful, spidery hands find their way to her waist, resting beside Obito’s as they continue working, checking every last metal seam. 

“You think we won’t want you the same.” he says, matter-of-fact and blunt as a mallet. 

“Well, you haven’t been… I mean, you’ve been okay  _ without _ me, haven’t you?”

“You’ve still been there,” Kakashi murmurs, tangling his skinny legs in around the both of them as Obito finishes the final check and pops her last panel back into place, the false skin around it shimmering and becoming whole once more. It’s true that she doesn’t look exactly the same. She doesn’t appear human, not up this close, and she likely never will again. But that hasn’t stopped them from including her before, has it? She still watched, still participated- still pinned Kakashi’s hand to the hull, or whispered in Obito’s ear as he got himself off in the showers, all while she floated like a ghost in the wires of the Flying Thunder God. 

“Yeah, as a voice,” she half-snorts. “I just mean that you don’t have to  _ touch _ me like this, if you don’t want to.”

“Rin,” Obito says, ever-so-slightly pained. “It’s still  _ you,  _ though.” 

“He’s trying to say that they could have put you in a pit-beast droid and we’d still probably want to fuck you,” Kakashi interjects. His fingers dance along the length of her thigh, the join of her near-perfectly seamless hip. “Kushina has  _ tentacles _ , for stars’ sake, and she’s both literally and figuratively the hottest thing on this ship.”

“You can’t talk us out of loving you, wires and all,” Obito’s hand joins Kakashi’s, pushing along the soft panels of her abdomen, thumb rubbing down the crest of her hip. She’s still wearing underwear, a nod to the fact that she’d told them earlier she wants to try wearing clothes even though she could henge into perfectly acceptable attire at any moment. It feels like coming home to slide his fingertips under the elastic waistband, to cup his palm around the curve of her waist, to feel how her body still heats in response to his touch.  _ The combination of Uchiha circuits and my Edo Tensei coding is nearly superior to the human brain, _ Tobirama had told Minato.  _ She’ll still respond to everything, including emotions and physical contact, unless she personally changes the coding _ . It’s obvious that the Tinker was telling the truth. “Don’t you want to know what it’s like, again? To have both of us,” and he slips his gentle touch down across the swell of her under her panties, the soft padding there that makes it feel nearly, quite nearly  _ real _ . Or original, he should say, because everything about the woman, the android in front of him, is undeniably real. It’s really Rin there, shuddering slightly as he presses against her front panel, as Kakashi slides his hand up to cup her firm breast and brush a thumb gently along its curves. 

“You’re certain,” Rin nearly whispers, her perfect new face crumpled gently with concern. “You mean it, you really want to.” 

“Has Kakashi ever done something he didn’t want to? That’s like forcing a Martian into a bathtub,” Obito laughs, leaning in further, pressing his lips gently to her warm cheek. “We’re still yours, sweetheart. Let us make you feel good?”

“You just want to try out my- what was it, you called it-”

“Your bespoke android pussy,” Kakashi says smoothly, with a mischievous grin, and Rin’s laugh is everything Obito wants to hear. “Although what I’d really like, right now, is to kiss you.” Her hands, so carefully examined by Obito, fit wonderfully around his cheeks as she pulls him in and presses her new mouth to his, clumsy and fresh. Kakashi pushes her back slightly onto the bed, tilting his head so that his nose fits against hers, and he can guide her back into the old routine of their kisses like puzzle pieces coming to rest. She shivers when he grazes soft teeth across her lower lip and then bites down, testing the give of the material, feeling the way her mouth remains artificially intact even though a bite like that would have Obito’s flesh swelling. It still feels good to kiss, to feel the way her manufactured neurons spark with far more precision and electricity than her bodily nerves ever did. It feels so good that she doesn’t even notice the way Obito’s hands have smoothed their way up her thighs until he’s back in her panties again, rubbing across the node of sensors on her front panel and watching her soak through with lubricant. 

“It feels almost the same to me,” Obito says, academic curiosity and lust mixing heavy in his eye. The rough drag of the fabric over her isn’t as shocking as it would have been, in her old body, but the grind of his palm against her still sets a fire in her stomach. It feels like wires sparking, like she’s heating up from her core, like she’ll be whirring smoke in no time if he keeps overwhelming her circuit boards. 

“Let me see,” Kakashi says, rather breathlessly breaking away from Rin’s mouth to push back, jostling Obito slightly. It’s rather adorable that Rin’s cheeks can get pink, flushed from the excitement of kissing Kakashi again. “Show me, come on, Obito, take her panties off already-

“Relax, fuck,” Obito laughs, Rin’s giggles cascading around them just like they used to when they were still falling from the speakers overhead. “I’m getting there,  _ Ba-ka-shi _ .” Rin pulls her legs up with a gentle clicking noise, adjusting her knees until Obito can slide her underwear off, that sweet tease of the pretty pink almost-flesh between her thighs enticing both of them. God, she’s everything they missed and more, and he can’t help joining Kakashi in pushing her legs back apart so they can  _ see _ her. 

“I think it’s cute that you still get wet for us,” Kakashi murmurs, pale fingers wrapped around Rin’s thigh to shove it wider, marveling at the slight give of the soft metal-silicone that Tobirama had so carefully crafted. “Look at that, still sweet and dripping all over the bunk, just like old times.” 

“You wanna see if it works the same as the old one?” Rin asks with a gleeful grin only slightly tinged with embarrassment, and if she still had lungs he knows it would be breathless. He does, he really does, he wants to touch the plush edges of her and slide his fingers in, to feel the give and take as she registers them spreading her apart. He wants to know if she’ll feel his tongue the way she used to, if he can lick into her and press his nose against her and smell  _ Rin _ still. 

“If he doesn’t hurry up and do it, I’m going to,” Obito declares, his scarred robotic fingers twitching in anticipation, eye glued to the way Kakashi traces the trail of slick dripping down her shining thigh. 

“Now who needs to slow down?” Kakashi asks, but it’s rhetorical because he’s sliding down onto his knees on the floor, tucking those fingers down around her leg and licking into her new flesh like a starving man. She startles, even with mechanical eyes that can almost catch movements as quickly as the Sharingan, grasping for purchase when he wraps his lips around the sweet, protruding bit of sensors that replace her clit. Her moan is so gratifying, every bit a memory made real again, and when he fucks two fingers into her just the way she used to like it, her back arches with a soft whirring noise and her golden, desperate whimpers. She doesn’t taste… natural, really, the same as him or Obito, but it’s definitely not unpleasant and even more so than that, Kakashi would probably swallow motor oil if it meant discovering again that when he crooks his fingers up he can still find a soft, tender spot to rub against. It makes her  _ writhe _ for them, kissing Obito frantically as Kakashi works her up higher, overloading every wire and feeling her clench rhythmically around his hand as he fits a third finger in. 

“Let me show you, let me show you,” Obito mutters, caught up in the vibration of Rin’s whines right against his mouth, and his robotic-enhanced hand comes down next to Kakashi’s wet chin to tug open a small surface and pull at a wire there. It has explosive effects, Rin shouting out and bucking up hard enough with her newfound strength to almost smash Kakashi in the face. Twisting the wire, tugging at it gently gets her to squirm and beg, clamping down and tearing at the bedspread with her beautiful hands. 

“Would you  _ fuck me already, _ ” she demands, when Obito lets her mouth free for half a second, reaching up with a stuttering, twitching hand to try and grab Kakashi’s hair and yank it, just like she used to. Kakashi comes up easy, wiping his face with the back of his hand, eyes a little frantic with desire as he claims Obito’s mouth for his own for just a brief moment as well. It’s a little bit of a fumbling thing, getting rearranged so that he can kneel on the bed and pull her thighs up around his hips, finally unworried about the idea of hurting her and her fragile body. This Rin can arch her back into him, rub her ass down across his crotch and his neglected erection, blinking her glassy eyes at him with that immaculate flush across her delicately freckled nose. She shines even more metallic in the dimmed lights of their quarters when Obito smashes the night settings with a clumsy hand, some precious thing they’re lucky enough to touch. “I can feel it,” she tells him, when he presses the tip of his erection against her and double-checks to make sure he’s lined up because it’s been a long, long time. “So close, I can feel it, please, Kakashi, I don’t wanna come empty-” 

“Don’t worry,” Obito soothes, climbing back on the bed and laying himself out beside them, sprawling like a star panther in the shadows of their intimacy. “He’ll fill you up, come on, Kashi, we’ve kept her waiting for so long-” and Kakashi thrusts into that tight, slick silicone with a muffled gasp, watching the delight on Rin’s face as he bottoms out and she can feel the exquisite  _ stretch _ . Obito can feel the arousal knotting tight in his stomach just watching it, the play of emotions across Kakashi’s face as he bites his lip and stills, unsure of whether or not Rin needs time to adjust in this form too. His stomach tensed, a little sweat across his shoulders and Obito can see his thighs shake slightly from the effort of resisting the urge to fuck in, in, into that tight clutch around his flushed erection. He knows that face too, the way Kakashi will bend forward over him when they fuck to kiss him and let him get his bearings, panting into his mouth and ever-so-obedient when it comes to his lovers’ pleasure. He knows too the drag of Rin’s fingers up Kakashi’s forearm, digging in and urging him forward, until he gets the memo and starts fucking her with long, slow thrusts. There’s something about the way Kakashi’s length manages to curve just right, sending a shiver down Obito’s spine just thinking of it when Rin twists and shouts for his clever, rolling hips. 

“So perfect,” Kakashi’s muttering, head bent and fingers running reverently along the lines of Rin’s torso, even as his other hand grips her hip firmly and he shudders from the pleasure of her clamping down further around him. “So perfect, Rin, you feel- you feel-”

“Nothing to worry about,” Obito murmurs, “You see, he still wants you, he’s gonna come for you, darling, how can we get you there too?”

“Just,” Rin swallows reflexively, her throat moving but nowhere to go. “My hand, Obito, please-” and she grabs his fingers in hers tightly, holding his warm palm to her chest, the pressure and the weight of his reality and the artificial heart beating beneath her silicone skin, the alloy of her body, the beauty of her overloading and overheating until Kakashi stutters and whines, thrusting hard through his own orgasm. He manages to slide a hand between her thighs, to pull at that one exposed wire, and then she’s shaking and coming in a flood all over his spent, sensitive cock. 

“Stars,” Kakashi rasps, dragging his palm across her stomach. “Every inch of you is lovely, Rin.” And she laughs, stabilizing again so soon, smiling up at him with eyes that can see every detail of his ardor for themselves once more. Obito could watch her relaxed and happy like that forever- watch  _ them _ forever, caught up in the sight of the ones he loves entwined again, but then... They fall on Obito before he’s even realized it, Kakashi’s trembling legs spreading over his thighs to pin him down and Rin’s whirring limbs fitting over his waist with hardly an ounce of effort. 

“Your turn,” Rin says decisively, more confident than before in her movements as she rolls her hips up and then back down again, sheathing herself over him in one smooth glide. Obito shouts for her, the way she ripples around him and he was already so worked up from just watching but feeling her is another thing entirely. His hands can’t bruise her waist, but he can grab her tightly and pull her down, watching her bounce happily on his cock without a hint of physical discomfort. Her hips twist back and forth, and Kakashi was  _ right _ , because every inch of her is lovely enough that he has to activate his Sharingan, unwilling to ever forget it. 

“Rin,” he gasps, caught up in the sweetness because he’s associated the smell of machinery with her for so long now that it hardly touches the surface of his pleasure, this is her, this is everything about her that he missed. Her smile, beaming down at him, and the way her breasts bounce with the effortless rocking of her hips, and her hair falling across her face. The tired guilt of loving Kakashi in front of her melts away because Kakashi’s watching them too, enamored eyes and a loose smile as he runs his hands up Obito’s thighs to pin him down further. How can he hold out, here in the eye of a two year storm with his body held safe between them? 

“Obito, my love,” she replies, so low and warm, and that’s it, he’s done for. Coming so hard he feels like he’s emptying himself out, his soul into hers and his wires connected with her until they are an interface and two people made two robots made two stars. She looks so pleased in such a familiar way, sated by the knowledge that she’d managed to make him come for her so explosively. Kakashi curls over her shoulder, looking down at him with the exact same loving eyes as he pants there on the sweaty bedsheets, and this…

This is the balance of the universe once more. 


End file.
